by Buddy Pross

Created on: July 25, 2008   Last Updated: September 08, 2010

Personally I enjoy both online and table top games, though I've never played one that took figurines for my table. I have only used guide books to give you generalized rules and things to use within your game. Whereas, in online gaming the rules are set and to do anything worthwhile you have to pay enough in a years' time to have bought stock in the table top roleplaying game or develop your own game. Most online games are half heartedly thrown together that truly aren't worth the dollars you spend to play them.

Furthermore, they are just a computer game that you could play on console or your computer from a disk. Whereas tabletop games give you the freedom of creating a world that you make and you and your friends help develop over time and could expand into Lord knows what. After all, book franchises have been developed off of tabletop games as well as online games themselves. Online games also have their benefits though, such as you don't have to have your friends there to play them; someone is always online. If you take the time to find the game that fits your style and personality and persona you can have a very rich and fulfilled time, gain friends you never would have, and develop ideas for your own game as well. I guess overall I can't say I prefer one to the other as they both have pros and cons.

The biggest pro to tabletop games is once you've bought it you own it. If you can't make your monthly payment for your online game account you can't play it. You also can't change your character's name or give them any real depth beyond what you start with in online games, from personal experience anyhow. For example, I decide I want to play as a elf in a online game. There may be a few sub-races or such in the online game. However, in a table top I can create my own subrace, as long as i take the time with whoever I'm playing with and figure out what the advantages of the mixed races would be and how the coupling came about.

Say I wanted to mix an elf with a dwarf not in a lifetime would this happen normally. Almost always dwarves despise elves and vice versa, but what if me and the person running the game sat down and discussed the idea of this coupling. Such as how a dwarf and elf coupled in the first place and so on after awhile we could figure out something. Say, the dwarf was of a rogue clan who had turned their back on the main priest of their ruling clan and was cursed so they couldn't interbreed with other dwarves, and searched out an artifact that made them capable of breeding. One of the ruling class had hired an elven assassin to dispose of the rogues and their preference to kill their victims was sex while commencing with the job. The assassin is impregnated due to the artifact and now we have an half breed of dwarf/elf.

I have yet to find a online game I could do this in; all the characters in such games have set races and classes. I prefer the freedom to mix and match and just can't find that in a online rpg, so table top games are my choice for the time being.

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